The coins held in Master nodes are not production investment that earns interest as in a normal currency reserve system...That money keeps flowing, in other words, it is not locked up in a box as is the case in a Master node.
So what ?
Whether the 'money' changes hands or not isn't the relevant point since the monetary objective is to earn a return for its holders and the technical objective is to provide some security for masternodes. If both those objectives are being met in a complimentary manner then there is a basis for value and demand. I think there's been
enough of a track record now to put that debate to bed.
The "interest earning" in Master nodes is nothing else but a re-distribution of seigniorage by mining ; in other words, a tax on every currency holder, that goes in the pockets of Master node holders: a transfer of wealth from active users to "passive possessors".
You are right in that it's a redistribution of the mining rewards - and a very effective one at that. Characterise it as a "tax" if you like but it's a bit of a stretch since: A - all coin holders can benefit to the extent of their holding, whether they are above or below the mastenode collateral threshold and B - the configuration now has a track record of success across all stakeholder sectors including holders (through supporting the market valuation), developers (through the decentralised blockchain funding), commercial participants (through blockchain funding and growing wallet support) and miners (see growing
network hashrate).
In DASH, because the miner will only receive 45% of the seigniorage, competition will only make him burn 45% of the seigniorage in PoW, and the rest goes in the pockets of Master nodes and the "gouvernors". Now, that is EXTREMELY SIMILAR to central banking and their interest rates on issued currency feeding a whole bunch of elite with free money, taxed by inflation on all the others.
Except is IS'NT central banking since Dash lives in an open monetary ecosystem and is continuously traded against other cryptocurrency assets. That has led to more, not fewer holders over the last 2 years, contrary to the argument implied by that paragraph. What matters is that it works as a monetary medium and the data on all fronts are in its favour on that count:
valuation,
mining participation,
industry support,
masternode takeup,
development growth etc.
Also because of this lucrative locking up of a large part of the money supply in master nodes, the ACTUAL available market cap of DASH is way lower than is calculated
Only if one is a clueless bitcointalk troll who likes to redefine 'marketcap' on a whim. (I'm not suggesting you're a troll, but you do appear to be equally creative with the term).
None of the Dash coin supply is "locked up". ALL masternode collateral is as mobile as any other part of the blockchain and I'm sure you already know that. If you fire up a wallet and send a transaction to an exchange, the wallet will not care where those funds are located as long as it has control of them, hence you'll see coin supply flowing to exchanges from collateralised addresses just as freely as non-collateralised ones.
The marketcap is therefore correctly reported. The fact that some holders have an incentive to not sell is not a basis that allows you to redefine marketcap - it's a basis for calling it a viable investment.
This implies re-centralisation, governance, and hence, taxes and lucrative happenings for the elite which get richer.
"The Elite" in this case being potentially every last Dash holder, given that they are able to invest in
Dash's reserve market even with the smallest holding. You don't like the fact that large holders are incentivised to re-invest their returns in that same reserve market ? Tough ! I DO like it, at least a whole lot more than them not being so.
The fact is, as with any successful monetary asset, they are at least as incentivised to liquidate their profits since - as I've already pointed out - Dash lives in an open market. The valuation will therefore reach an equilibrium between them holding and liquidating. There is always a price at which decentralisation of holdings occurs and I think you'll find that some early whales are nowhere near as paunchy as they were a couple of years ago